The Regenerate Man Relative To The Unregenerate Man

Selection from Arcana Coelestia Emanuel Swedenborg

With the regenerate man there is a conscience of what is good and true, and he does good and thinks truth from conscience; the good which he does being the good of charity, and the truth which he thinks being the truth of faith.

The unregenerate man has no conscience, or if any, it is not a conscience of doing good from charity, and of thinking truth from faith, but is based on some love that regards himself or the world, wherefore it is a spurious or false conscience.

With the regenerate man there is joy when he acts according to conscience, and anxiety when he is forced to do or think contrary to it;

but it is not so with the unregenerate, for very many such men do not know what conscience is, much less what it is to do anything either according or contrary to it, but only what it is to do the things that favor their loves. This is what gives them joy, and when they do what is contrary to their loves, this is what gives them anxiety.

With the regenerate man there is a new will and a new understanding, and this new will and new understanding are his conscience, that is, they are in his conscience, and through this the Lord works the good of charity and the truth of faith.

With an unregenerate man there is not will, but instead of will there is cupidity, and a consequent proneness to every evil; neither is there understanding, but mere reasoning and a consequent falling away to every falsity.

With the regenerate man there is celestial and spiritual life;

but with the unregenerate man there is only corporeal and worldly life, and his ability to think and understand what is good and true is from the Lord's life through the remains before spoken of, and it is from this that he has the faculty of reflecting.

With the regenerate the internal man has the dominion, the external being obedient and submissive;

but with the unregenerate the external man rules, the internal being quiescent, as if it had no existence.

The regenerate man knows, or has a capacity of knowing on reflection, what the internal man is, and what the external;

but of these the unregenerate man is altogether ignorant, nor can he know them even if he reflects, since he is unacquainted with the good and truth of faith originating in charity.

Hence may be seen what is the quality of the regenerate, and what of the unregenerate man, and that they differ from each other like summer and winter, and light and darkness; wherefore the regenerate is a living, but the unregenerate a dead man.

(Arcana Coelestia 977)

Spiritual Truths Can Be Seen By the Understanding

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

...  all the truths of the Word, which are the truths of heaven and of the church, can be seen by the understanding, in heaven spiritually, in the world rationally; for a truly human understanding is the sight itself of these truths, for it is separated from what is material, and when separated it sees truths as clearly as the eye sees objects; it sees truths as it loves them, for as it loves them it is enlightened. The angels have wisdom in consequence of seeing truths; when, therefore, it is said to any angel that this or that must be believed although it is not understood, the angel answers, Do you think that I am insane, or that you are God whom I am to believe if I do not see? It may be falsity from hell.

(Apocalypse Explained 1100d)

What I Love, That I Do

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Man has thought from light and thought from love, and that thought from light makes man's presence in heaven, but thought from love makes man's conjunction with heaven, and for the reason that love is spiritual conjunction. Therefore, when man's thought from light becomes his thought from love, he is introduced into heaven as to a marriage, and so far as love is the primary agent in thought from light or leads that thought, man enters heaven as a bride enters the bride-chamber, and is wedded. For the Lord is called in the Word a "bridegroom" and a "husband," and heaven and the church are called a "bride" and a "wife." "To be wedded" means to be conjoined to heaven in some society of it; and one is so far conjoined to heaven as he has acquired in the world intelligence and wisdom from the Lord through the Word, thus so far as he has learned by means of Divine truths to think that there is a God, and that the Lord is that God. And yet one who thinks from few truths, thus from little intelligence, although he is conjoined with heaven when he thinks from love, is conjoined in its lower parts only.

By love, love to the Lord is meant, and loving the Lord does not mean loving Him as a Person, for by such a love only man is not conjoined to heaven, but by the love of Divine good and Divine truth, which are the Lord in heaven and in the church; and these two are not loved by knowing them, thinking about them, understanding them, and speaking them, but by willing and doing them for the reason that they are commanded by the Lord, and thus because they are uses. Nothing prior is full until it has been done; and the end for the sake of which the thing is done is the love; consequently the love of knowing a thing, of thinking about it, and of understanding it springs from a love of willing and doing it. Tell me why you wish to know and understand anything except for the sake of an end which you love. The end that is loved is the deed. If you say, it is for the sake of faith, this is faith alone, or faith merely of the thought separated from actual faith which is the deed, which is nothing. You are greatly deceived if you think that you believe in God, when you are not doing the things pertaining to God; for the Lord teaches in John:

He that hath My commandments and doeth them, he it is that loveth Me, and I will make My abode with him. But he that loveth Me not keepeth not My words (John 14:21, 23-24).

In a word, loving and doing are one; therefore where loving is mentioned in the Word doing is meant, and where doing is mentioned loving also is meant; for what I love, that I do.

(Apocalypse Explained 1099b)

Enlightenment which Affects the Understanding

Selection from The Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

As few know anything about the enlightenment which affects the understanding of a man who is taught by the Lord, something will now be said about it. There is an interior and an exterior enlightenment from the Lord; and there is an interior and an exterior enlightenment from man. Interior enlightenment from the Lord consists in a man's perceiving at first hearing whether what is said is true or not true; and exterior enlightenment is derived from this in the thought. Interior enlightenment from man is from confirmation alone; and exterior enlightenment from man is from knowledge alone. Something will now be said about each of these.

• A rational man by interior enlightenment from the Lord at once perceives, when he hears them, whether many things are true or not; as, for example, that love is the life of faith, that is, that faith lives from love. By interior enlightenment a man also perceives that what a man loves he wills, and what he wills he does, and consequently that to love is to do; and again, that whatever a man believes from love, this he also wills and does, and consequently that to have faith is also to do; and also that an irreligious man cannot have love to God, and so cannot have faith in God. By interior enlightenment also a rational man perceives the following truths as soon as he hears them: that God is One; that He is omnipresent; that all good is from Him; also that all things have relation to good and truth; and that all good is from Good itself and all truth from Truth itself. These and other similar truths a man perceives interiorly within himself when he hears them; and he has this perception because he has rationality, and this in the light of heaven is what enlightens.

• Exterior enlightenment is enlightenment of thought derived from this interior enlightenment; and thought is in this enlightenment so far as it remains in the perception that it has from interior enlightenment and also so far as it has knowledges of truth and good, for from these it draws reasons for confirmation. Thought from this exterior enlightenment sees a matter on both sides; on the one it sees reasons which confirm it, and on the other appearances which invalidate it; the latter it dispels and the former it stores up.

• Interior enlightenment from man, however, is wholly different. By it a man sees a matter on one side and not on the other; and when he has confirmed it he sees it in a light similar in appearance to the light treated of above, but it is the light of winter. For example, a judge who judges unjustly because of bribes and for the sake of gain, when he has confirmed his decision by the laws and by reasons, sees in his judgment nothing but what is just. Some, indeed, see the injustice, but as they do not wish to see it, they darken the issue and blind themselves, and so do not see it. It is the same in the case of a judge whose decisions are influenced by friendship, by the desire to gain favour, and by the ties of relationship.

In similar fashion such persons treat everything that they receive from the mouth of a man in authority or a man of celebrity, or that they have hatched out from their own intelligence. They are blind reasoners; for their sight is from falsities, which they confirm; and falsity closes the sight, while truth opens it. Such persons do not see any truth from the light of truth, or any justice from a love of what is just, but only from the light of confirmation, which is a delusive light. In the spiritual world these appear like faces with no head, or like faces that resemble human faces with heads of wood behind them; and they are called rational animals, because their rationality is merely potential. Exterior enlightenment from man is possessed by those who think and speak from mere knowledge impressed upon the memory; and these have but little ability to confirm anything from themselves.

(The Divine Providence 168)

The Opposite of Two Kinds of Pleasures

From Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

No one who is in the pleasures of the lusts of evil can know anything about the pleasures of affections for good in which the angelic heaven is; for these two kinds of pleasure are directly opposite to each other in internals, and therefore interiorly are opposite in externals; although they differ little on the mere surface. For every love has its own pleasures, even the love of evil in those who are in lusts, such as the love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding, stealing, doing cruel deeds, and in the most wicked even the love of blaspheming the holy things of the church, and of chattering venomously against God. The love of ruling from love of self is the fountain head of these pleasures. They are from the lusts that beset the interiors of the mind; and from the interiors they flow down into the body, and there excite the unclean things that titillate the fibers; and thus bodily pleasure springs from the mind's pleasure in accord with the lusts.

What kinds of unclean things there are that titillate the bodily fibers of such persons it is granted to every one after death to know in the spiritual world. They are in general cadaverous, excrementitious, stercoraceous [consisting of or resembling dung or feces], reeking, and urinous things, for the hells of such abound in these unclean things. ... But after they have entered hell these filthy pleasures are turned into direful things. All this has been said that it may be understood what the happiness of heaven is, and the nature of it, .... For every thing is known from its opposite.

(Divine Providence 38)

When the Worship of Self Succeeds

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... That they hear not a man the lip of his fellow. That this signifies that all are at variance, or that the one is against the other, is evident from the words themselves. "Not to hear one another's lip," is not to acknowledge what another says, and in the internal sense not to acknowledge what another teaches, that is, his doctrine, for "lip" is doctrine .... They acknowledge it indeed with the mouth, but not with the heart; but agreement with the mouth is nothing when there is disagreement of the heart.

The case in this respect is the same as it is with evil spirits in the other life, who, in like manner as the good, are distinguished into societies, but are kept conjoined together by being attached by the like phantasies and cupidities, so that they act as a one in persecuting truths and goods. Thus there is a certain common interest by which they are held together; but as soon as this common bond is dissolved, they rush one upon another, and then their delight consists in tormenting their associate or associates.

The case is similar with such doctrine and worship in this world; those in it acknowledge what pertains to doctrine and ritual harmoniously enough; but the common interest that holds them together is the worship of self; and so far as they can share in this common interest, they acknowledge; but so far as they cannot share or hope to share in it, they are disunited; for the reason given just above, that no one of this character possesses any truth, but everyone has falsity in the place of truth, and evil in the place of good.

(Arcana Coelestia 1322)

When Man Takes the Place of the Lord in Worship

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When the worship of self succeeds in the place of the worship of the Lord, then all truth is not only perverted, but is even abolished, and at last falsity is acknowledged in the place of truth, and evil in the place of good. For all the light of truth is from the Lord, and all darkness is from man; and when man takes the place of the Lord in worship, the light of truth becomes thick darkness; and then the light is seen by men as thick darkness, and thick darkness is seen as the light.

Such moreover is precisely the life of such persons after death; the life of falsity is to them as if it were light, but the life of truth is to them as thick darkness. But when they approach toward heaven, the light of such a life is changed into total darkness. So long as they are in the world, they can indeed speak truth, even with eloquence and apparent zeal; and as there is with all such persons a constant reflection upon self, they seem to themselves to think as they speak; but as their very end is the worship of self, their thoughts derive from the end that they do not acknowledge truth except insofar as self is in the truth. When a man in whose mouth is the truth is of such a character, it is evident that he does not possess the truth; and in the other life this is plainly evident, for there such men not only do not acknowledge the truth which they had professed in the life of the body, but hold it in hatred, and persecute it; and this just in proportion as their arrogance or their worship of self is not taken away.

(Arcana Coelestia 1321)